Literature’s Dual Life in the Case of ‘Huckleberry Finn’

Literature — novels, plays, and poems — can have an uncanny dual life, where they simultaneously represent something eternal and something historical, and this is often how they are taught in school.

Being honest about Huckleberry Finn goes right to the heart of whether we can be honest about our heritage and identity as Americans.

Why are we reading a Shakespeare play or Huckleberry Finn? Well, because these works are great, but they also tell us something about the times in which they were created. Unfortunately, previous eras and dead authors often used language or accepted as normal sentiments that we now find unacceptable.

I think that the choices teachers make in this regard depend on which side of the equation they want to emphasize — do we teach "Huckleberry Finn" or "The Merchant of Venice" because they are great or because they are accurate depictions of their times, including attitudes that were held then?

Personally, if I were to teach Huck Finn, I would want my students to be shocked and repelled by the use of the n-word, and I would then want to discuss the issues around that word, and how those issues are represented in the novel. Twain the author is by no means unaware of how Huck’s use of that word increasingly misrepresents his feelings toward Jim, and so the word is intentionally loaded. “Slave” doesn’t carry the same shock value, and so it tones down what Twain is getting at.

But since I am me, I would also teach other novels about race relations from the same era, and compare and contrast them with Huck Finn in both their attitudes and their sophistication of language and analysis. I would talk, too, about the comic veneer of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, and the changing nature of what readers of different eras consider funny. It is much easier for a tragedy or an epic to transcend the time in which it was written than it is for a comedy to do so, because the shared values that the effect of tragedy depends upon are basic ones, while the shared values that comedy depends upon are often transient.

If students recoil — well, perhaps that is an educational opportunity, too, for both those who recoil and those who don’t. When a nation’s history is fraught with conflict, as our history is, the question always arises — can we talk with children and teenagers honestly about that conflict, or does that just generate more conflict?

The brave view is that talking it out helps work it out. Maybe the realistic view is that talking it out inflames the issues further. But that is America, especially these days.

My natural sentiments would be in favor of talking it out, of seeking the humanity behind the labels and helping students experience that. But while I was doing that, I am sure I would have my doubts. In many ways, being honest about Huckleberry Finn goes right to the heart of whether we can be honest about our heritage and our identity as Americans.